God's Time

The older I get, the more I realize the truth of the Jewish teaching that God is intimately involved in the world, moment by moment. That sounds like it keeps Him pretty busy. Yet what was God doing before creating the world?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

This is a wonderful question. The first step is to appreciate that even the concept of "time" was created when God created the universe. It was created in such a way that one thing would happen after the next. Imagine if time was never created. One minute you'd be playing in a baby crib, the next minute you'd be going to college, the next minute you'd learn how to walk, and next you'd find a spouse and get married.

Life would be very confusing.

God created time in order that we could understand the progression of life. However, God is above time. He can see everything at once - birth, death, and everything in-between. And since "time" is also a creation, it is impossible to ask what God was doing before he created the world - because the concept of "before" did not exist.